


The Brooklyn Lonely Hearts Club (the Desperado Remix)

by hazel_3017



Category: Hockey RPF
Genre: Alternate Universe - Supernatural Elements, Long-Distance Relationship, M/M, Remix
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-04-06
Updated: 2017-04-06
Packaged: 2018-10-15 11:34:50
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,213
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10555632
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/hazel_3017/pseuds/hazel_3017
Summary: John has been seeing her for years.





	

**Author's Note:**

  * For [blueorangecrush](https://archiveofourown.org/users/blueorangecrush/gifts).
  * Inspired by [The Brooklyn Lonely Hearts Club](https://archiveofourown.org/works/8991592) by [blueorangecrush](https://archiveofourown.org/users/blueorangecrush/pseuds/blueorangecrush). 



> This is the first time I've ever written a remix, and I really, really hope you like this one. Many thanks to you-know-who for betaing!

John has been seeing her for years.

Her shape is never the same, changing between everything from a child to a teenager to an old woman. She’s always female, though, and always sounds like a hardcore New Yorker, her accent some strange mix of a girl from Queens and a 40s gangster, all slurred vowels and soft consonants. 

John would think it hilarious if it she wasn’t, you know, a hallucination.

“Well, that’s just rude.”

“Hm?”

“Going around calling people a hallucination. You’ll give me a complex,” she says, flicking her long hair over her shoulder. She’s a teenager today; her hair is green.

John snorts. “I’m the only one who can see you,” he mutters softly under his breath, because he forgets, sometimes, that he’s the only one who sees and hears her. People keep giving him weird looks, and it’s all John can do not to explain, _I’m not actually talking to myself; there is someone there._ “You don’t even have a name. You’re just a figment of my imagination.”

The girl morphs into a woman John’s age, all pale blonde hair and delicate features. She is heart-achingly beautiful. She lifts an immaculate eyebrow, radiating disdain so strongly John feels himself wilt under her unimpressed look. 

“I do not need something so mundane as a common name. _I_ am the Queen of Hearts, much too divine for something so trivial.”

John sniggers quietly. She changes personality along with her shape, but the accent remains.

He just can’t take her seriously when she sounds like a less nasal version of Fran Drescher, no matter how regal she looks.

“Sorry, QH.”

She changes back into the teenager. “Don’t call me that,” she says sulkily. She’s never liked the abbreviation of her title in any shape she’s in, but John has been seeing her since before he was drafted; the title lost its novelty real quick. 

“Sorry, QH,” he says again, just to piss her off. He grins when she sticks out her tongue at him and flips him off.

“Babe? Who you talking to?”

John looks up from his controller when PK walks back into the living room. He’s holding two dinner plates with homemade pizza on it—one with olive topping and one without; John can’t stand the taste—and is wearing nothing but a thin pair of briefs that hides absolutely _nothing._ God, he’s hot.

John is so very pleased he started shacking up with PK already back in juniors. He’s fairly certain that PK won’t actually wake up one day and realise that he is way out of John’s league after so many years together.

“He’s not,” QH says casually, because she somehow always knows what John is thinking—and why wouldn’t she? She’s a product of John’s fantasy. “He’s your perfect match. You’ll see soon.”

John spares her a quick warning glance before looking back at PK. She’ll continue talking even with other people around— _especially_ with other people around—and John answers without thinking sometimes, quick and instinctive.

He’s asked her why he’s the only one who can see her, why PK and everyone else can’t. She always shrugs her shoulders. “What makes you so sure they can’t?” she’ll ask, and John will feel so unsettled by the thought that she might be _real_ he won’t speak to her for a few hours.

(Better to go on thinking he’s moderately insane.)

“Johnny?”

“I’m fine, yeah. Sorry, spaced out there for a second,” John says. It’s a familiar excuse now. He switches off the game console and puts away his controller, and waits for PK to put the plates down on the coffee table in front of the couch before making grabby hands at him. “C’mere.”

PK grins. He throws himself on the couch, laughing when John grunts under PK’s solid weight. 

“Were you talking to yourself again?” PK asks, nuzzling his face against the crook of John’s neck. The drag of his beard tickles. John is going to end up with beard burn. Again.

“Just talking to the voices in my head.”

“The voices in your head, eh? And what are they saying?”

John sighs. He reaches for PK’s face, poking at his cheek until he lifts his head so John can kiss him. “That you have to go back to Montreal soon,” John says against his lips. He sneaks another kiss, slow and filthy, just because.

“That kiss gonna have to last me till Christmas?” PK asks.

He’s trying to make light of it, but they both know the hardship it will be, going so long without seeing each other and then only having a short moment together when they do.

“At least you’ve got it better than ol’ Davy Jones,” QH will say when John allows himself to get maudlin. “He could only see his chick once every ten years and then from sunrise to sunset only.”

QH often talks about famous lovers from history—and some not so famous—as if she’s known them all.

John knows it’s her weird little way of trying to comfort him when he misses PK extra hard. It doesn’t work then, and it doesn’t work now as she comments, “Christmas is only three months away. That’s nothing.”

She’s changed shapes again, but John ignores her in favour of giving PK another breathtaking kiss.

If this is gonna last them till Christmas, John is damn well going to make it sure it’s worth waiting for.

**

He meets PK before QH.

“Yeah, that’s not random,” she will tell him later, and John will ask her to change form because she’s chosen one that looks like a younger version of his mother and it’s freaking him out.

QH is magical and mystifying and scary in all the ways that terrifies John. She’s a _ghost_ , probably. Or spirit or goddess—“I’d say goddess is the most accurate, actually.”—and whatever she is, John is the only one who can see her as far as he can tell.

It’s occurred to him that he might be a little bit insane. _Moderately_ insane. But he doesn’t feel like it, and as _other_ as she is, she’s the only anomaly in his life, so John kind of figures he’s probably not too screwed up in the head.

Possibly it’s a lack of socialisation. On account of all the hockey.

PK is different. He is magical and mystifying and scary in all the best ways. He’s _real_. He still terrifies John, but in a way that he welcomes, in a way that makes him look at PK and think, _I’m already yours._

It’s a daunting thought for a kid not even eighteen yet; John is as sure about PK as he is about hockey, and that’s _everything._

PK says, “We can see other people, you know,” once John is drafted to the Islanders and ends up on Long Island. “You’re gonna be a superstar. Lots of interest.” He grabs onto the swell of John’s ass deliberately, wiggling his brows with feeling and leering at John like the loser he is.

John grins, biting at his lip to hold back his laugh. He’s so ridiculously in love with this boy.

“You really are,” QH sighs long-sufferingly, because she always knows what he’s thinking and always has to comment on it. 

John ignores her. “Okay,” he tells PK, and doesn’t say he doesn’t need to see other people; he only needs PK.

PK will figure it out eventually.

**

It’s not as if John hasn’t questioned her existence throughout the years, but the first time he really asks her to explain, he’s on the wrong side of the Atlantic and has just ended yet another screaming match with PK.

“Hm?” QH says, distracted. She’s a middle-aged woman, dark hair greying at her temples, smooth skin starting to wrinkle. She looks like PK if PK was female and fifty years old.

John wonders if she’s doing it on purpose. Probably.

“Queen of Hearts. What does it mean? Why are you here? What do you actually do?”

She opens one eye to peer at John before going back to meditating. “I’m the Queen of Hearts,” she says after a long moment, but nothing else.

John clenches his fists at his sides, furious. Furious with QH who will never give a clear answer, and furious with PK, who’s pissed at John for wanting to play even if it’s in Europe.

“Whatever,” John says, and devotes himself to ignoring her for the rest of the night. After years of practice it’s not a particular hardship.

“You’ll overcome this,” QH says quietly, suddenly, and John startles.

“How can you be so sure?” He doesn’t bother to ask how she knows he’s worrying, how she knows the fights with PK are getting to the point where John has started coming up with excuses not to pick up the phone—anything to avoid another argument, another screaming match, another call ending in thick, stilted silence filled with hurt and all the things they’re both too proud to take back.

John has found himself thinking, guiltily, just once, _We’re not gonna make it_.

QH shrugs delicately. “I’m the Queen of Hearts,” she repeats, as if it is supposed to _mean_ something. 

John wishes she’d just tell him already. “But how do you—”

QH opens both eyes this time. She looks at John, her gaze dark and even. “I know.”

Somehow, John believes her.

**

There are times when QH disappears for days at a time. John worries—and he knows how irrational that is, that she’s only a hallucination, but he can’t help but wonder if she’s okay. Wonders where she is and who she’s with. Other times she’s there but silent, her shape that of an old woman, skin shrunken and eyes huge in her face, watching, watching, watching.

She tends to stay in the peripheral of his vision then, not quite visible but always present; a constant he’s grown accustomed to. Ironically, these are the moments he thinks the least about her, when he can almost forget she’s even there. These moments—and they’re few, so very few—are the times John convinces himself that he’s normal, that there is nothing wrong with him. 

John gets caught up in his life, in hockey and the everlasting struggle to maintain his long-distance relationship with PK. They have their usual few days together, scattered over the course of a year: a week here and there during summer, the three or four times they play against each other during the season, a couple of days during winter break if they’re lucky, and then, one year, the Olympics.

John gets the news first; PK gets his phone call a couple of hours later, so late they thought maybe he hadn’t made the cut after all. 

John goes from thrilled to over-the-hill-ecstatic.

They’re going to the Olympics. _Together_.

John’s been tapped by Team Canada before, they both have, but this is different. This is the _Olympics_. It’s sharing the ice with the best players in the world. It’s being on the _same team_ as some of the best players in the world and being recognised as one of them.

“It’s just, he’s so _good_. How does he even _do_ that?”

John looks from Jamie Benn’s incredulous face to where Sidney Crosby is taking shots at Carey Price.

_Sidney Crosby_ and _Carey Price._ John shakes his head. He’s no slouch himself, he knows. Wouldn’t have been picked to the team if he wasn’t good enough, but he looks across the ice, seeing guys like Weber and Bergeron and Carter skating to Coach’s whistle. Looks at Sidney Crosby taking shots at Carey Price at one end of the rink and Roberto Luongo goofing off with Dan Hamhuis at the other.

It’s hard not to get a little star struck.

“Which one?” PK asks, glancing from Sid and Carey to Jamie, nudging him with his stick playfully until Jamie’s knee buckles at the pressure and he stumbles before catching himself. Jamie giggles. John rolls his eyes at them, but can’t hide his smile.

“Both. Either.”

“Carey is cash,” PK says cheerfully, proudly. “He’s just money in the bank. Sid is…” He trails off with a shrug, and all three watch as Sidney snaps off a puck with a backhand shot at what should be an impossible angle, but still manages to find the net in between the goal post and Carey’s short side. John can probably make that shot 1 out of 100. He bets Sid makes it 1 out of 10, he is that ridiculous.

“Sid is Sid,” PK finishes, as if that is all the explanation needed. John is kind of forced to concede it is.

“He’s lonely.”

John blinks. It takes him a second to recognise the accent, and another to search out QH among his teammates. She’s a child now, somewhere between seven and ten, John bets. He almost misses her, she looks so tiny compared to all the hockey players skating around her—and in Getzlaf’s case, _through_ her.

John narrows his eyes, watching as Getzlaf stops up short, looking around himself for something that is not there.

It is almost as if he’d felt her, but that’s impossible. QH is _John’s_ hallu—

“He’ll be okay, though,” QH continues. “They’ll figure things out.”

“What?” John stares at her. What is she talking about? _Who_ is she talking about?

“What what?” Jamie asks.

“Johnny.” PK skates up to him, slinging a casual arm over his shoulder. He’s smiling, but John can see the concern hidden behind his smile, feels the arm draw him in a little more firmly than necessary. “You okay? You spaced out for a moment there.” Which isn’t unusual for John, exactly, and PK has mostly grown used to it, if not a little wary. It’s been a while though, and John knows PK worries even if they’ve never actually talked about it.

John looks back at the ice; QH is gone. He sighs. He hates that he’s giving PK cause for concern, and the lie comes easy when he says, “Yeah, sorry. I’m fine. I was just wondering what we’re doing after practice.”

PK doesn’t believe him, John can tell he doesn’t. Still. PK smiles, and it’s only a little strained, and they don’t talk about it.

(They never talk about it.)

**

Nick comes to Long Island, and he’s so painfully lonely, so painfully broken hearted, so painfully like _John,_ and PK makes a joke about the Long Island Lonely Hearts Club and then next year they’re in Brooklyn and they’re the Brooklyn Lonely Hearts Club and it still sucks and it’s still painful but at least John and Nick grow closer. At least John has someone there now who gets it, really gets it.

They spend so much time together, Nick and John. Through the season and the playoffs, through the trade that takes everyone’s breath away and which may or may not be because of John, because PK loves him. Through Casey joining them in their shared misery—and after so much time spent together, Nick grows used to John’s quirks, to the way John’s eyes sometimes strays to things that aren’t there, or the way he’ll sometimes talk as if he’s in the middle of a conversation but no one had said anything.

He never questions it.

If John didn’t know any better, he’d swear Nick’s head turns in her direction sometimes, when QH offers one of her usual quips, as if straining to listening to something far away and muted.

Which is decidedly weird, John decides. QH is his hallucination, his freak show; no one else should be able to sense her. Maybe it’s time he actually went to a doctor. 

“I’m not, you know.”

“What?”

“A hallucination. There are others who see me,” QH says one day.

_There are others_ —? “What?” John says again. “But that—Who else?” he demands.

QH shrugs carelessly. “I’m the Queen of Hearts,” she says, and she must have said that a thousand times over the years—always, always as if it is supposed to mean something, as if _John_ should know what it means. He’s never quite been able to figure out what that might be. “Anyone who is in tune with their heart’s truest desire has the ability to see me. I am everywhere. I am in every heart.”

John stares. QH stares back.

“So what? You’re like Cupid?”

QH snorts. “More like Aphrodite, I would say.”

“What?”

She sighs, annoyed at his confusion. “I am…too much and too complex to explain all of me, but. Let’s just call me an agent of love. I deal in romance and soul mates, mostly.”

“ _What_?” John says again. Nothing QH is saying is making any sense to him. 

QH sighs again. She’s twirling a strand of hair between her fingers; it’s brown and curly today. “Do you believe in love at first sight? Do you believe in true love? In soul mates?”

“Yes,” John answers, because he does, because he first saw PK when he was barely a teen and he knew already then that PK was it _._ There will be no other for him.

“Of course you do. Your heart has always been startlingly clear in what it wants.” 

He thinks maybe he understands what she means, but he can’t quite wrap his mind around it; he’s still reeling from the thought of her being _real_. He’s spent so long, talking to someone no one else could hear or see—spent so long thinking there was something seriously wrong with him, even as he never dared to address it, too scared of the consequences.

Moderately insane, that’s how John has thought of himself for a long, long time.

“John,” PK says the next time they talk, after John has shown him the calendar on the wall where he’s counting down the days until Christmas, until he can see PK again, be with him properly. “I’ve heard you before, talking to someone you call QH.”

John blanches. They’ve never talked about this before, not ever, in all the years they’ve known each other. But John has known, in the recesses of his mind, that PK has known something’s been up, that’s he’s caught John being weird.

“She’s here. I see her,” PK continues before John can find the words to respond. “She says she’s the Queen of Hearts. I—I’m kind of freaking out here. What—would you be quiet, please? I’m on the phone—”

PK keeps talking, snapping at a woman speaking in the background, and when John looks up and to the side, he sees her.

“I told you I am everywhere,” QH says, voice identical to the one PK is yelling at on his end of the phone. She smiles, and it’s serene. Final. “He’s ready then. You won’t see me again.” John blinks and she’s gone. It’s as if she was never there, as if she hasn’t been a staple of John’s existence for the last however many years.

_You won’t see me again_ , she’d said, and John knows he won’t. He doesn’t need her anymore, because, _He’s ready then_. 

She’s the Queen of Hearts. John has spent years with her, and he never really knew what that meant.

(He does now.)

 


End file.
